Mel Casson

(25 July 1920 - 21 May 2008, USA)

Redeye

Mel Casson was born in Boston. He sold his first cartoon at the age of 17 to the Saturday Evening Post and shortly afterwards, appeared in nearly all the leading periodicals, including the Saturday Evening Post, Esquire, The New York Times and Ladies Home Journal.

Sparky

During World War II, he served in the Infantry, and took part in the Normandy landing on D-Day. He participated in all the major battles in Europe, and came out of the War as a Captain and earned five Battle Stars, two Bronze Stars, the Croix de Guerre and two Purple Hearts. He also served in Korea.

It's Me Dilly! (with Alfred Andriola, 25/1/1958)

His first strip was 'Jeff Crockett' for the Herald Tribune Syndicate, which appeared between 1948 and 1952. He then took on the little kid panels 'Sparky' and 'Angel' for the Publishers Syndicate, which ran between 1953 and 1966. He cooperated with Alfred Andriola on 'It's Me Dilly' from 1958 to 1962. Mel Casson has furtermore created several cartoon books, like 'Ever Since Adam and Eve' (also in cooperation with Andriola), and worked in advertising, books and TV scriptwriting.

Mixed Singles (1973)

In the 1970s, Casson worked with cartoonist William F. Brown on the trendy 'Mixed Singles' strip, that was retitled to 'Boomer' later on and appeared until 1981. In 1990, Casson became the new artist of the 'Redeye' daily comic, which he took over from its creator Gordon Bess. Casson worked with writer Bill Yates on the panel, but when Yates retired in 1999, Casson took on the writing as well. In May 2008, he died in his Westport home at the age of 87.